On Friday, February 18, members and allies of CUNY Law’s Formerly Incarcerated Law Students Advocacy Association (FILSAA) tabled with Unlock the Bar (UTB) as part of their advocacy challenging New York State to eliminate all questions about involvement with the legal system, including criminal records, family court involvement, debt, and more, from law school and bar applications. At the heart of the effort is their north-star goal: eliminating the Character and Fitness application altogether, in favor of a process that does not apply a carceral mentality to evaluating lawyers but instead serves as embodiment of lawyering for liberative principles.
This was part of a series of events kicked off on Wednesday, February 16, as part of UTB’s Week of Action, which included teach-ins, rallies, panel discussions, and other events facilitated by UTB members and colleagues at the National Justice Impact Bar Association and centered around making the case for the abolition of the Character and Fitness process.
Activities for the Week of Action
The Week of Action began with the release of a thirty-page report detailing the origins of the Character & Fitness (C&F) inquiry of the New York State Bar Examination, a barrier of entry into the legal profession this coalition of system-impacted legal minds and allies seek to dismantle. In this forty-five question “Moral Character” application, applicants are required to reveal personal information irrelevant in predicting an applicant’s future ethics in practicing law.
The Unlock the Bar Report
Mandatory disclosures of interactions with law enforcement, sealed juvenile delinquency proceedings, and loosely defined “conduct or behavior resulting from a condition or impairment that could call into question ethics and competency” openly defy State laws and public policy prohibiting discrimination against applicants with criminal records in employment and licensing applications.
While tabling for UTB, CUNY Law students promoted UTB’s petition to the Office of Court Administration that demands immediate reforms to C&F, specifically for Question 26, which illegally asks applicants for their juvenile and sealed adult criminal history. The petition garnered over 400 signatures and was delivered to the Office of Court Administration at the rally. CUNY Law students also shared UTB’s toolkit, which includes UTB’s C&F report and also details concrete actions folks can take to raise awareness about UTB’s mission to abolish C&F. The tabling was successful in accumulating more attention for UTB and also getting more CUNY Law students involved in the campaign.
Photo: James Morano of CUNY Law student and FILSAA board member Phil Miller speaks at the UTB rally
The Week of Action ended in a rally in front of the Office of Court Administration on Wednesday, February 23. Current and former FILSAA members who were formerly incarcerated spoke at the rally and shared their experiences with applying to law school and the C&F inquiry, highlighting the gross inequities that exist in the legal field because of C&F and other barriers that exist for folks who are system-impacted. Both FILSAA and non-FILSAA members were substantially involved in planning the rally on February 23 and also played key roles in hosting the rally.
Photo: James Morano-CUNY Law student and FILSAA member Colby Williams speaks at the UTB rally
FILSAA is a student organization founded in 2018 on a mission to help formerly and currently incarcerated people apply to and succeed in law school. It connects abolition advocates and prison rights activists to formerly and currently incarcerated people through letter-writing, organizing around prison conditions, hosting events with other formerly incarcerated people, and application help.
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